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2016

11 May 2016: Urban Dogs in the studio - Day 3 - Photos and report from drummer Matthew Best

URBAN DOGS: ATTACK!

New Urban Dogs Album - Day 3 Recording: 11 May 2016

Dogs drummer Matthew Best has today published a couple of photos of Alvin recording vocals on one of his songs - see right - as well as reporting the following:

Firstly: "Yesterday we managed to get five basic tracks down which means we only have three to do today. I got rained on coming to the studio as I was misled by the weather forecast. So first order of business is a cup of tea before attempting to tackle our two cover versions, leading off with the drum track to "Stepping Stone". We are following the original Monkees/Paul Revere arrangement rather than the very different Sex Pistols version. It's still surprisingly raucous.

After that Alvin has done an arrangement of You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory", the old Johnny Thunders tune. He's playing bass and guitar on this leaving Knox to eat Doritos, though Knox is going to add a second guitar later.

After that there's one more track to get down and most of my work here will be done, though I'll be sticking around in case there's a desperate need for some out of tune backing vocals or a tambourine overdub. Well, you never know!"

Secondly: "Just done the final drum track, which was a Knox song that we all whipped into some sort of shape which ended up being quite different to his demo. Not sure yet if this was a good idea or not. Time will tell, I guess.

Today is our last day this week but we will all be back next week to finish up. In the time-hallowed Nick Lowe method we've bashed it down, now it's time to tart it up. Though when that includes doing all the vocals I'm not sure "tarting it up" is the right term. Anyway, whatever it is we'll be doing it next Tuesday onwards and I will be doing updates then too."

Thirdly: "Last track of the album and thankfully Charlie remembered to take a photo of me making weird facial expressions (see two photos above), commonly known as "drum face". That's all the basic tracks completed so it's on with overdubs and vocals, starting with Alvin's numbers as he isn't available all of next week."

And finally: "Here I am playing the final drum track of this session. You can see Charlie in the reflection taking the photo. There are other photos with even worse drum faces in them..."